Free The Revolt of Aphrodite by Lawrence Durrell

Sipple. “What about it, Mrs. H?” he cried. “I told you I wanted to be tortured tonight in front of my friends here.” Mrs. Henniker clucked and responded imperturbably that there had been a little delay, but that the “torture-room” was being prepared and the girls dressed up. The clown then excused himself with aplomb, saying that he had to get ready for his act but that he would not be long.“Don’t let him fall asleep” he added pointing to the yawning Pulley. “I need an audience or it falls flat.”
    Nor did it take very long to set the theatrical scene. Mrs. Henniker reappeared with clasped hands and bade us follow her once more down into the same gaunt kitchen where the shadows still bobbed and slithered—but a different set of them; moreover the dungeon now was full of the melancholy clanking of chains. More lights had been introduced—and there in the middle of things was Sipple naked. They had just finished chaining him to a truckle bed of medieval ugliness. He paid no attention to anyone. He appeared deeply preoccupied. He was wearing the awkward oldfashioned leg-irons of the cripple. But most bizarre of all were the party whips, so to speak. The three girls who had been delegated to “torture” him wore mortar-boards and university gowns with dingy fur tippets. The contrast with their baggy Turkish trousers was delightful. They each held a long broom switch—the sort one could buy for a few drachmae and which tavern keepers use for sweeping out the mud-floored taverns. As we entered they all advanced purposefully upon Sipple with their weapons at the ready while he, appearing to catch sight of them for the first time, gave a start and sank kneeling to the floor.
    He began to tremble and sweat, his eyeballs hung out as he gazed around him for some method of escape. He shrank back with dismal clankings. I had to remind myself that he was acting—but indeed was he acting? It was impossible to say how true or false this traumatic behaviour was. Mrs. Henniker folded her arms and looked on with a proud smile. The three doctors of divinity now proclaimed in very broken English, “Arthur, you have been naughty again. You must be punish!” Sipple cringed. “Nao!” he cried in anguish. “Don’t ’urt me. I swear I never.”
    The girls, too, acted their parts very well, frowning, knitting black brows, gritting white teeth. Their English was full of charm—such broken crockery, and so various as to accent—craggy Cretan, singsong Ionian. “Confess” they cried, and Sipple began to sob. “Forward!” said Mrs. Henniker now, under her breath in Greek, adding the further adornment of a thick Russian intonation. “Forward my children , my partridges.”
    They bowed implacably over Sipple now and shouted in ragged unison, “You have again wetted your bed.” And before he could protest any further they fell upon him roundly with their broom switches and began to fustigate the fool unmercifully crying “Dirty. Dirty.”
    “Ah” cried Sipple at the stinging pleasure of the first assault. “Ah.” He writhed, twisted and pleaded to be sure; he even made a few desultory movements which suggested that he was going to fight back. But this was only to provoke a harsher attack. Anyway he would have stood little chance against this band of peasant Amazons. He clanked, scraped and squeaked. The noise grew somewhat loud, and Mrs. Henniker slipped into the corner to put on a disc of the Blue Danube in order to mitigate it. Bits of broom flew off in every direction. Caradoc watched this scene with the reflective gravity of one watching a bullfight. I felt astonishment mixed with misgiving. But meanwhile Sipple, oblivious to us all, was taking his medicine like a clown—nay, lapping it up.
    He had sunk under the sharpened onslaught, begun to disintegrate, deliquesce. His pale arms and legs looked like those of a small octopus writhing in the throes of death. In between his cries and sobs for mercy his